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Month: September 2016

This past Saturday morning, September 24th, I fished a Fort Hood SKIES program trip with six-year-old Ayden Bouchee, accompanied by his mom, Amanda Bouchee.

Although we had to wade through about 19 catfish smaller than this one to find the lunker of the bunch, it was more than worth it. Ayden was super excited to catch a fish this big!!

This white bass went 13 7/8″ which is a pretty darn nice white bass for Belton Lake.

I divided this morning’s trip into three distinct parts. Due to the wind, part one consisted of downrigging for white bass because the surface chop was so great that no top water action was able to be seen, if it existed. Part two consisted of fishing for blue catfish with cut bait, and part three consisted of fishing for sunfish in shallow, cover-filled water.

Ayden was quite successful in all three of these pursuits, and by the time our trip came to a close, he had landed a total of 48 fish, including a 3.25 pound blue catfish which he took on cut bait under a slipfloat.

SKIES Unlimited stands for School of Knowledge, Inspiration, Exploration and Skills. SKIES Unlimited classes are open to children of active duty military personnel, retirees, Department of the Army civilians, and to Department of Defense contractors. To enroll in SKIES Unlimited activities, children must be registered with CYSS at Building 121 on 761st Tank Destroyer Avenue (right across from the Chili’s restaurant).

There is no charge for registration; parents must bring an ID that shows their affiliation with the military, the child’s shot records, and the report from a recent physical exam. While the SKIES Unlimited programs are not free, many military families are eligible for sizeable credits toward SKIES Unlimited activities. There is a $300 credit available to each child when their parent is deployed.

TALLY = 48 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12-13

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Water Level: ~0.03 feet low. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

This past Friday evening, September 23, I conducted the 17th SKIFF program trip of this 2016 season by welcoming aboard Ryan Webber, and his mom, Ashley Webber.

Ryan Webber came aboard with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt. This paid big dividends as he quickly took to each of the 4 tactics we used on this evening’s trip. Here, Ryan shows off a blue catfish he caught on a slipfloat in over 25 feet of water.

Ryan did a fantastic job of listening to my coaching, allowing to land this 19″ hybrid striper that went just over 3 pounds.

Ryan also did well fishing for sunfish up shallow and in casting to white bass near the surface just after dark.
Ryan is a nine-year-old boy who came on board with a good bit of fishing experience already under his belt. Ryan’s father, US Army Sergeant Webber, is a mechanic currently deployed to South Korea with only 20 days left to go in-country.

As is my preference for trips involving kids in elementary school, I broke this trip up into multiple, short segments.

These segments consisted of sunfishing in shallow water, cat fishing with cut bait using slip floats, downrigging for white bass and hybrid striper, and casting to shallow white bass after sunset.

Ryan did well in all of these disciplines. He landed 24 sunfish of various sorts and a small largemouth bass as we fished up shallow. He landed another 20 blue catfish after getting the hang of when to set the hook using a slip float. And, even though a stiff breeze at sunset obscured our ability to see white bass and hybrid striper feeding on the surface, Ryan did well as we cast to unseen fish that we located with sonar after a productive round of downrigging.

When all was said and done, Ryan had landed 62 fish this evening. We had planned on Ryan’s younger sister who is but six years old to attend, but she got cold feet at the last minute. In hindsight, Mrs. Webber felt that was probably for the best as she knew her daughter’s patience level would not have lasted near as long as Ryan’s did.

A huge thanks to all of those who support the SKIFF program so that when he calls like Mrs. Webber’s come in requesting a trip while the military spouse is away, I never have to hesitate in saying “Yes!”

And, another thanks to Mrs. Denise Igo, who manages the Fort Hood Area Events webpage. She helped get the word out about the SKIFF program that lead Mrs. Webber to know about my after-school fishing opportunities which exist right up until the time change in early November.

TALLY = 62 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: SE12

Sky Conditions: 20% cloud cover on a fair sky.

Water Level: ~0.02 feet low. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

This past Tuesday evening, I fished the first of 3 half-day trips on Belton Lake with Steve Dinnell and his friend, James Murdock. Both are retirees and fishing buddies who have traveled far and wide to fish in both saltwater and fresh.

Steve drew first blood on the hybrids on Wednesday evening as a blended school of white bass and hybrid striper began pushing shad to the top and then sounded. We went to where they were, found them still nearby with sonar, and then worked slabs through them vertically to put a bunch of fish in the boat in short order.

On Thursday morning, before the sun rose, we had live shad in the water in pursuit of hybrid. Although we found a few, we kept having bluecat move in on our baits. Most were small — this one wasn’t!

Thursday evening we set out again with live shad gunning for hybrid. On a rocky hump in about 27 feet of water we found this smallmouth eager to chase down our large live baits.

Not much for having his photo taken, James also caught some nice fish this trip. This hybrid, taken on live shad, was the last fish in the boat of these fellows’ 2-day excursion.

Under hot, bright, still conditions, fishing was tough this afternoon from 4 to 6 PM as we primarily used downriggers to catch smaller, suspended white bass.

Around 6 PM as the sun’s intensity lessened, and some light cloud cover moved in, the fish began to slowly perk up in advance of an aggressive top water feed at low light after sunset.

When I began to see fish in the lower third of the water column begin to coalesce and position 2 to 6 feet up off bottom, I knew things were about to happen. For about 1/2 hour, we made pass after pass with the downriggers and caught singles and doubles of white bass that fell hard for our Pet Spoons.

Around 6:40 PM, the first sustained top water action took place when a large school of white bass mixed with short hybrids broke the surface and stayed there for several minutes. For about 20 minutes we “spot hopped” from school to school and smoked with slabs over these fish quite successfully.

Eventually, schooling action that began here and there, turned into sustained, nonstop schooling action up shallower, allowing us to hop up onto the front casting deck and work soft plastics through these fish allowing Steve and James to put a final 36 fish in the boat between 7:20 and 7:50 PM.

As we closed the evening out, our tally stood at 86 fish.

Trip #2 on Thursday morning began slowly as we fished with live shad gunning for hybrid. We caught only a handful of fish through 9:45am (including a big blue cat, shown in the report photos) when the lightest of breezes and a bit of spotty cloud cover turned the fish on. We wound up boating 116 fish that morning, primarily sight casting to surface feeding white bass, or using a countdown method to fish where they were last seen.

Trip #3 on Thursday evening was, by request, specifically focused on hybrid stripers using live bait. Because we fished long in the morning (and still left the fish biting!!), the fellows wanted to shorten the evening trip. So, we met at 5p instead of 4p, and only fished until 7:15p after both had accomplished their goal of landing hybrid stripers on the live shad. Along the way, we also put 1 largemouth, 1 smallmouth, 1 drum, and 1 bluecat in the boat.

This past Saturday evening, September 17th, I fished on Belton Lake with Rolf and Nina K., and their 3 boys, Roman, Dorian, and Karsten, ages nine, six, and four, respectively. The boys’ aunt, Jo De, who was visiting from New Hampshire, coordinated the trip by phone with me yesterday and joined us, as well.

Dorian K. and his dad, Rolf, with one of the many white bass we took by downrigging and, around sunset, by casting to schooling fish on the surface.

Karsten and his mom, Nina, with one of the white bass he reeled in after it chased down a Pet Spoon being trolled behind a downrigger.

Big brother Roman with a nice white bass of his own, also taken on a downrigger within a half-hour of our 5pm start.

We agreed that the focus of the trip would be making the boys successful, and since none of them had fished before, we simply went in order from youngest to oldest and had the boys take turns on the downriggers each time one or two white bass struck either the tandem rig or the three-armed umbrella rig, both of which were equipped with Pet Spoons.

After three full rounds for each boy, I could see the novelty of downrigging was wearing off a bit, so we changed things up and moved into shallow water to target sunfish. We used live bait under slip floats to present our small offerings to sunfish in cover-rich shallow water. Each of the boys took four rounds on the rod before getting antsy once again to “go fast” and do a little something different.

With the sun getting close to setting, I began to look for larger and more heavily schooled white bass slowly making their way shallower for the final low-light feed. Again, we caught singles and doubles on the tandem rig and three-armed umbrella rig for about 25 minutes until the sun got low enough to spur on the first of the evening’s top water action. Once the white bass began feeding on the surface they fed hard and continuously right up until 8 PM and then shut down.

Between sunfishing and our second attempt at downrigging, I took the time to show the two older boys and Nina (the only adult with a license) how to cast so that if and when the white bass began to feed on top, we could take full advantage of it with 3 rods working the fish. This turned out to be a wise choice, because there was plenty to take advantage of.

By the time the last fish had chased shad to the surface, we had tallied a total of 65 fish. Not bad for a boatload of rookies! This evening, all three boys earned a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department “First Fish” award.

TALLY = 65 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 5:00p

End Time: 8:00p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 93F

Water Surface Temp: 85.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: E9

Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~0.01 feet high. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

This morning, Saturday, 17 September, I conducted the 16th “S.K.I.F.F.” program trip of the 2016 season, taking 7-year-old Kaden Burns out fishing on Stillhouse Hollow.

Kaden Burns landed this solid 3 1/8 pound largemouth (just shy of 17″) all by himself on Stillhouse. The largemouth were working in “wolfpacks” attacking shad on the surface, thus giving away their locations.

When the heat got to be a bit too much, we headed up in the shady shallows and worked on our panfishing skills.

Kaden is a student at Memorial Christian Academy in Kileen, TX, and is from an “all-Army” family. His mom, Major Sheila Burns, is part of the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps, and his dad, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kelly Burns, is assigned to Army aviation. CW4 Burns is currently deployed and shuttles between Iraq and Kuwait in his assignment with a Grey Eagle unmanned aircraft unit.

Although Sheila warned me Kaden might be groggy when I arrived to pick him up, the prospect of fishing overcame the prospect of more sleep and Kaden was actually very talkative on our drive to the boat ramp under cover of darkness.

We got launched and had lines in the water by around 7am, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. As the sky brightened suddenly, thanks to a lack of cloud cover, we began to observe schooling largemouth bass aggressively chasing shad over the 15 to 20 foot breakline we were holding near. Kaden had never cast a spinning rod before, but he learned super quickly and retained what he had learned. He actually hooked the first fish of the day, only to lose it at boatside as he let it “dangle” after reeling it in a bit too far. We discussed a better approach — leaving more line out and quickly swing the fish from the water into the boat — which he did well the remainder of the trip.

We picked up several largemouth in this area casting soft plastics on jigheads before the sun rose sufficiently high to push the fish down.

For variety’s sake, we then went up shallow and targeted sunfish using worms under balsawood floats. Kaden expanded his list of species captured to include bluegill sunfish, green sunfish, and longear sunfish as we did so.

As the sun continued to climb and no breezed developed, it began to get toasty. I asked Kaden if he was up for one more kind of fishing for yet another species — white bass — and he gave me the thumbs-up.

We put the downrigger’s ball down at 25 feet over a 28-30′ bottom and let the small Pet Spoons attached to the tandem rig work their magic. In minutes, we were fast to a largemouth, then a largemouth/white bass double, then another largemouth. Then, as we were working to take that largemouth off the hook, a small school of largemouth began to explode on shad next to the boat. I told Kaden to grab a spinning rod and cast to them. Without hesitation, he grabbed the rod, flipped the bail, made a spot-on cast, held his rod tip low, began the retrieve, and hooked and landed the last bass of the day. What a finish!!

A huge thanks to the Austin Fly Fishers who spearhead the fundraising and donations to keep this program afloat (literally!).

TALLY = 31 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:45a

End Time: 10:45a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 76F

Water Surface Temp: 85.0F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: <10% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~0.25 feet high. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT:

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1810– sunrise sight-casting to schooling largemouth

**Area 200 – shallow sunfishing

**Area 254/1686 – downrigging for whites/largemouth in lower 1/3 of water column

This past Thursday morning, September 15th, I fished with Ron Phillips of Killeen and his oldest son Ronald Phillips. The two work together in a family-owned auto repair business, All Tune and Lube on Business 190 in Killeen, but today left the two younger brothers in charge and came out not just to catch fish, but also to try to learn how fish are caught.

Killeen-based All Tune and Lube owner Ron Phillips set the wrenches aside this morning and gave the local fishery a good going over. Here, he hoists a 4.25 pound blue cat.

We had fish in the boat before the sun was in the sky. Ron and Ronald landed this pair of hybrid seconds apart.

I am always thankful when clients can express exactly what their expectations are, so that I can let them know if the expectations are realistic, and if so, work to fulfill those expectations.

Ron was very clear that he wanted to learn how I go about catching fish. So, I came prepared today to demonstrate for Ron and his son four different late-summer tactics that I depend on to put fish in the boat from the start of August through to the end of October.

My day began well before I met these two fellows as I captured an ample quantity of live shad so I could demonstrate one of the most effective tactics for catching hybrid striped bass, that of tight-lining directly beneath the boat with live shad. We had lines in the water and fish on the deck nearly an hour before sunrise and caught legal sized hybrid striper right on through to 8 a.m.

By the time the aggressive, low-light hybrid action had run its course, plenty of blue catfish had found their way to our position. So, the next technique I demonstrated was that of using fresh dead shad as cut bait for blue catfish in deep, open water.

We began our cat fishing segment with 21 fish already in the boat, and added a mix of 11 blue and channel catfish to the tally before moving on to instructional segment number three.

For our third demonstration, I relied heavily on sonar to find tightly grouped white bass and hybrid striper along structural irregularities in deep open water. I then used a combination of waypoints and trails to go back over and fish on top of fish we had successfully identified using sonar. We found a concentration of mixed whites and hybrids numbering in the hundreds, and were able to excite the white bass into biting using a vertical presentation with three-quarter ounce slabs, while also taking an occasional hybrid while using one or two down rods baited with live shad.

As the sun got higher and hotter, and the winds remained nearly calm, I decided to close the trip out by showing the fellows how to downrig. Between 10:30 and 11 AM we got geared up with tandem rigs equipped with Pet Spoons and caught numerous singles and doubles from the same concentration of fish we had been slabbing for previously.

Back when our fish count was still in the 20s, Ron commented that we had already caught more fish at that point in the trip then he and Ronald had in the past year. As we wrapped things up, our tally stood at 66 fish, and both fellows were beyond excited to understand what it takes to put fish in the boat during the heat of a Texas summer.

TALLY = 60 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 11:00a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F

Water Surface Temp: 84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: WNW under 4mph

Sky Conditions: 10% cloud cover in the western sky.

Water Level: ~0.03 feet high. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

GT = 30

AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

**Area 1808 – tightlining live shad for hybrid in <30′; then bluecat on cutbait in the same area

**Area 651 – brief topwater action

**Area 1807/1809 – tightly schooled white bass with a few hybrid mixed in on a breakline — smoking & live shad

This past Saturday evening, I fished with Aaron, Daniel, and Alexandria Chambers, chaperoned by their mom, Melissa.

Shoemaker High School student Aaron Chambers landed the first fish of his life and many more after that on our SKIFF program trip to Lake Belton this past Saturday.

8-year-old Alexandria show off the first fish of her life with a little help from her mom, Melissa.

Alexandria’s twin brother, Daniel, stayed enthusiastic the entire trip and really came on strong in the last hour as we encountered solid surface-feeding white bass action.

Melissa and I had coordinated a previous date in August, but rain and illness in their family prevented that from happening. Still, Melissa was able to keep the entire thing a surprise for the kids until the moment they drove through the Corps of Engineers gate to the park we met at on Lake Belton.

None of the three kids had ever fished before. Aaron (age 14) was a good bit older than his 8-year-old twin siblings, so I enlisted his help in helping ensure their success while I made sure he caught his fair share of fish, too. Aaron’s help was much appreciated as we encountered 17 mph winds following the passage of a cold front that sped through central Texas in the morning, shifting the winds to the north, darkening the skies, and dropping trace of rain.

We enjoyed three distinct “chapters” on this trip. Chapter one consisted of downrigging for white bass that were somewhat lethargic under the bright, post-frontal skies. We found a solid congregation of white bass holding on a distinct breakline in 20-25 feet of water and worked them over with repeated passes using downriggers equipped with Pet Spoons. Following a 4:15p start, we had over 2 dozen fish in the boat by 6pm, thanks to landing a number of doubles on the tandem rigs we were downrigging with.

We spent about 45 minutes fishing cut bait near bottom for blue catfish until each of the three kids was able to land several catfish on their own. These catfish were small, as they have been all summer, but they were plentiful and very cooperative. As we wrapped up the catfishing the tally stood at 32 fish boated by around 7pm.

The last chapter of the day was to be written up in shallower water. Thanks to a few sparse, but well-positioned clouds, the decrease of light that normally accompanies sunset came a bit early tonight as the sun sank behind these clouds before sinking below the horizon. This got the white bass going on their evening topwater feed a bit early. We enjoyed over an hour of sight-casting to surface feeding white bass, and ended the trip with an additional 34 fish landed via this technique.

It is not at all uncommon to catch as many fish in the last hour of light as in the previous 3 hours preceding.

All three kids obviously caught the first fish of their lives on this trip and earned TPWD “First Fish Awards”.

If you are a military spouse and your spouse is away from home on military duty, your children can also participate in such a SKIFF trip, thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Austin Fly Fishers. Simply give me a call, text, or email (see below).

TALLY = 66 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 88F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: NNW17, tapering down to NNW8

Sky Conditions: 10% cloud cover in the western sky.

Water Level: ~0.06 feet high. Lake is at full pool with only evaporative losses and no water being released.

Caleb landed this 3.75 pound hybrid striped bass as we downrigged with balls set at 31 feet over a 45 foot bottom.

Caleb and Tyler are nine-year-old twin brothers who had never fished before. This morning’s weather was a continuation of the unstable weather we have had of late. This morning began with heavy grey cloud cover and a south-southeast wind blowing around 12 mph. The wind made any top water action that may have existed very difficult to see unless you were right on top of it, so, I began our morning with each boy manning one of my two downriggers. Each downrigger was equipped with a tandem rig rigged with two Pet Spoons. From our first line in the water around 6:45 until around 8:40 AM, we enjoyed consistent success on the downriggers, first up shallow with the ball set from 14 to 17 feet, then, as it brightened and the fish moved further offshore, we caught them with the ball set at 24 to 31 feet.

When it became clear to Liz and I that the novelty of downrigging had worn off (even though the fish were still cooperating), we headed up shallow and tryed our luck with rods baited with worms suspended under balsawood floats targeting sunfish. Our fish count stood at 38 fish prior to beginning our sunfishing adventure. After 50 minutes of effort with the boys taking turns on just one rod, we added another 14 fish to our tally which now stood at 52.

For our grand finale this morning, we fished near bottom with cutbait targeting blue catfish. I found abundant blue cat schooled in 32 feet of water. We used shad to tempt these fish and wound up with a grand total of 11 coming over the gunwale before mom and I agreed to call it a good morning at 10:30 with 63 fish landed for our efforts.

Both boys succeeded in catching the first fish of their lives today and then went on to appreciate a number of other fishing skills, as well.

TALLY = 63 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30a

End Time: 10:30a

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 75F

Water Surface Temp: 83.4F

Wind Speed & Direction: SSE12

Sky Conditions: 70-100% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~0.88 feet high. Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE KILLEEN DAILY HERALD, 04 SEPT. 2016:

Since 1992, I’ve kept a detailed log of every fishing trip I’ve taken on Belton Lake and Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir. From this log, clear trends emerge from the data.

One thing that has become quite clear is that no other single factor impacts fish behavior more than local weather; not season, nor moon phase, nor water temperature.

When it comes to local weather, the most desirable circumstance for angling is stable weather. Stable weather exists when either a high pressure system or a low pressure system dominates.

When a high pressure system dominates, days will be hot, clear, dry and nearly cloudless for a number of days in a row. We experienced such a scenario during the month of July this year. The skies remained clear for approximately three weeks in a row, the overnight lows only dipped to 76-78 degree, the daytime highs were in the high 90s, and the winds were southerly, with light winds in the morning and stronger breezes in the afternoon. Every day was like the day before, and the fishing became predictable as the fish did the same things in the same places and at the same times each day.

Just three weeks ago, the season’s first cold front made its way into Texas, followed by a low pressure system which dominated the weather for about 10 days. During these 10 days, rain fell daily, the skies remained grey and nearly 100 percent cloudy, the daytime highs only made it to the mid-80s, and, once again, each day was like the next weather-wise.

During this time the white bass bite on Belton Lake went through the roof and my clients enjoyed multiple 100-plus fish days.

The past two weeks’ weather has now been anything but stable, and my results have fallen off a bit, averaging exactly 61 fish caught per trip. Characteristics of unstable weather include winds from multiple directions and at varying speeds over the course of a given day, heavy morning cloudiness, afternoon thunderstorm development and hot and humid weather.

So how does one deal with unstable weather? First, I make sure that we are on the water during the most productive hours, around sunrise and sunset. Even in unstable weather conditions, the rapid increase in light at sunrise and the rapid decrease in light at sunset both spur increased fish activity.

Next, using live bait will help buffer the impacts of unstable weather and the impacts of cold fronts, as well. Prior to this week, the last time I found it advantageous to use live bait with any regularity was at the end of May and into the first part of June when another round of unstable weather put the fish off a bit.

This past week, I watched the weather forecast closely in advance of a scheduled trip on Thursday morning with Krystin Brown, of Temple, and her father, Ron Snodgrass, visiting her from Ferris, Ill. Not only had the weather been unstable, a mild cold front was due to pass overnight with clearing skies and northerly winds due for the morning of this trip.

My instinct told me I needed to have ample bait on board to make this father-daughter trip successful. So, several hours in advance of my clients’ arrival, I netted large, lively threadfin shad as insurance against the tough fishing I anticipated.

Indeed, as first light came, there was scant topwater action despite the fact that topwater action had been taking place consistently, even with our unstable weather. We landed our first legal hybrid striped bass at 6:34 a.m. and continued to catch a variety of species, including hybrid striped bass, white bass, drum and blue catfish, right through the end of our trip. Anglers in the area using artificial baits were having little or no success, and the lake was nearly devoid of anglers by 8:45 a.m. I noted that even those covering larger spans of water via downrigging or flatline trolling were struggling.

By the time we pulled our lines in around 11 a.m., Brown and Snodgrass had boated a total of 52 fish, including a legal limit of 10 hybrid of at least 18 inches, and enjoyed steady action over the four-plus hours on the water. We were on the water at the right time with the right presentation for unstable weather conditions.

This past Monday evening I fished the 2016 season’s 14th SKIFF program trip, treating Love and Faith C. to a half-day trip on Lake Belton. The girls’ mom, Zatira, paid for the girls cousins, Emmanuel N. and Nialise M. to go along.

From left: Faith, Nialise, Emmanuel, and Love, each with a white bass we took via downrigging within 25 minutes of launching. The kids went on to land 49 fish before nightfall.

Love and Faith’s father is currently on deployed status to South Korea, and their cousins will be returning to Connecticut shortly to begin the new school year there.

Today’s weather was quite turbulent, with winds blowing up to 12 mph from just north of east. We encountered three or four brief spritzes of rain while we were on the water.

We began our trip resolved to help Emmanuel and Nialise land the first fish of their lives. The very first spot I checked with sonar held white bass in a feeding posture several feet up off the bottom. Seeing this, I put twin downriggers down, both equipped with Pet Spoons, and no sooner did we turn the boat about and go over the area holding those fish, then Emmanuel was hooked into a double. Nialise immediately followed this up with a single, as did Faith, and within 15 minutes, Love also had her first fish. Each time we ran over these fish, a few more spooked, and by the time Love landed hers, I knew it was time to move on.

To keep things interesting, we headed up shallow to fish for sunfish and in under 15 minutes had everyone take turns on the two bream poles we were using, bringing our tally up to 20 fish before we left the panfishing behind.

Due to the heavy cloud cover, the light level by 6:30pm was equivalent to that near sunset on most clear days. Seeing this, I transitioned us into pre-sunset downrigging, again using Pet Spoons. This allowed the kids to catch white bass after white bass over a 70 minute span, right up until some brief top water action provided the grand finale.

Because Love and Faith were a bit older and had some prior fishing experience, I had them casting independently out of the stern, and placed Nialise and Emmanuel to my left and right and did their casting for them, allowing them to retrieve their baits through the boiling fish at the surface. Again, the kids landed white bass after white bass for about 25 minutes until the fish quit thanks to the failing light.

When all was said and done we had boated a grand total of 49 fish.

TALLY = 49 fish, all caught and released

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 4:15p

End Time: 8:15p

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 83F

Water Surface Temp: 84.7F

Wind Speed & Direction: ENE4-13

Sky Conditions: 100% cloud cover.

Water Level: ~2.47 feet high. Lake is falling slowly at ~.11 feet per day